Training yourself to be a good everyday observer and asking yourself questions such as “What else could I do with that?” will help you develop your art and unleash the potential of ordinary items; you don’t know how you could use something you’ve overlooked a thousand times to your creative advantage unless you let yourself experiment.

We’re going to take some things that most people throw away immediately – lolly sticks – and turn them into a design resource you’ll be able to use in personal and professional projects. It’s not hard, and there’s no secret – other than a willingness to live a creatively curious life.

Step 1

For years I threw lolly sticks in the bin. Then one day I noticed they created a cool edge when broken, so I started saving them. You’ll need a good handful before you can create the edge we’re after.

Step 3
Draw a rule on some paper and align your broken edges. Vary the sizing so you create plenty of character with the edge. Tape your broken pieces together to make scanning them easier. Scan in your edge as an RGB TIFF image at 100%, set the resolution to at least 600dpi, and save it to your desktop.

Step 4
Open your scanned image in Photoshop, and using the Levels palette (Cmd/Ctrl + L) adjust the image so you blow out details darkening the darks and lightening the lights until you have a posterised look (as shown in the image). You can also experiment further with levels to retain more mid-tones, if that’s the look you’re after. For this resource I wanted a high-contrast edge with almost no alpha pixels.

I would recommend this device for families and small businesses who want one safe place to store all their important digital content and a way to easily share it with friends, family, business partners, or customers.

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